I’m not the first GeekMom to talk about her kid(s) getting glasses and I won’t re-discuss why people become myopic. I just want to make one point: glasses are what make us geeks cool. Though, I’m sure the GeekMoms pictured above would agree that we didn’t feel cool in our too-big glasses as kids. Now, even infants can find glasses that look good.

My MVP and VIP are matching four-eyed siblings. Image: Cathe Post

My husband and I both started wearing glasses at an early age. So, when our five-year-old daughter needed glasses almost two years ago, we weren’t the least bit surprised. Then, last month, a couple of weeks after my son turned three, he earned the opportunity to pick out his first pairs of glasses.

Thankfully both kids went to the eye doctor with the mind set of, “I want to find a pair of glasses like mom.” I consider my husband and me to be among the fortunate few parents whose sight-hindered child wants to wear glasses. Still, when ours finally had their glasses, we started having fun pointing out some of their favorite fictional characters and people who wear glasses. It’s no surprise, they are all geeks.

The National Archives of Scotland maintains the official register of plaid patterns known as “tartan” and their associated clans or groups in The Scottish Register of Tartans. Their mission is both to preserve history as well as to register newly designed tartans. This registry was formed as the official one in 2008, merging two unofficial registries, the Scottish Tartans World Register and the Scottish Tartans Authority. There are many tartans that are designated not for a clan, as commonly thought, but also for organizations, areas of land, and even companies. In that last category are an assortment of tartans that have been registered for fictional characters. Click on the character’s name in bold to see the picture of the fabric at The Scottish Register of Tartans.

Brave‘s DunBroch clan. For this year’s animated film Brave, Disney/Pixar registered the royal family’s tartan, which uses “the ocean blue of the North Sea” and “deep scarlet [that] represents the family’s reverence for its own history and the blood shed during battles between the clans. Deep green shows a love for Scotland’s majestic highlands.” The navy blue represents the forging of the clans, and the grey “imbues a sense of respect for the inner soul of the strong Scottish people.”

One of my geeky loves is technology accessories. If it will work with my iPod, I will fall in love. One day online I stumbled on a pair of Captain America headphones. The artwork brought me back to the earlier days of the character. As a child Captain America was one of my favorite characters. I even made up a song about him that I would walk around the house singing. I thought the headphones were looked pretty cool and figured “why not?”.

The box arrived and I was super excited to test them out. One problem…my son saw them first. Since he is really big into boxes, I thought that is what he wanted. I was not so lucky. He wanted my headphones. I don’t like to share my geeky toys, but since I was convinced he wouldn’t like them, I let him try them on. I was wrong again. He loved them so much he declared “I think these will be mine now” and then walked off to play “Where’s my water?” on the iPad. 45 minutes later, I had to beg to get them back.

I have always wanted my son to have a pair of headphones for car trips and other times I didn’t feel like listening to “Wheres my water?” or “Sonic the Hedgehog” . I have looked at most brands and even bought a few different pairs. He never found them interesting or comfortable enough to wear. I had given up on the fight and felt doomed to forever hear Car’s 20 million times on road trips. It never occurred to me it would be my headphones he would want.

After I finally had my mitts on them I realized why he liked them so much. They are pretty comfy and the sound isn’t too bad either. They are certainly not Boise quality, but for a pair of stylized headphones, they are pretty nice. Unlike the new child headphones, these do not have the volume control, but since my iPod has that feature built in, I’m not missing it.

Since it is so hard to find my son headphones I am giving this one up and just going to get my own. Its amazing how I thought I was beaten and then out of the blue here comes Captain America to save the day. Now gone are the days of listening to Cars 20 million times while on a road trip. Thank you Captain America. You’re my hero!

Here it is, the definitive GeekMom Mother’s Day shopping guide. I surveyed my fellow GeekMoms to see what everyone most wanted for Mother’s Day, outside of the lovely pleasantries of nice meals cooked for us, time spent with our adorable children, and moments of solitude. This is our list, and chances are there’s something on it for the GeekMom in your family.

The Sims Medieval from EA

The Sims Medieval made it onto a few GeekMom wish lists this year, perfect for the GeekMom who wants to rule the kingdom. Then you can top off a day of gaming with dinner at Medieval Times.

Sometimes mom just wants to curl up with a great new book, like Aimee Bender’s The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake or GeekMom icon Tina Fey’s new Bossypants. If you could magically create time for her to read it, that would be awesome, too.

Sumo Omni Lounge

For lounging and gaming, give the Sumo Omni Lounge a try. One GeekMom described it as the Best. Chair. Ever.

Gardening GeekMoms will dig a Fermentation Pot to give a little culture to the veggies from the garden. Or give your GeekMom a Cast-Iron Griddle to cook up the backyard harvest.

Sleep Talkin' Man messenger bag

If you read the Sleep Talkin’ Man blog, you’ll understand why a GeekMom will double over laughing if she receives this messenger bag that says, “Don’t leave the duck there. It’s totally irresponsible. Put it on the swing, it’ll have much more fun.”

Star Trek Voyager, Paramount Entertainment

Give a TV-loving GeekMom a box set of her favorite show, especially if it’s one you can watch as a family, like the Star Trek Voyager complete box set.

For some moms, gifts in tiny velvet boxes are a standby, surefire hit. The sure thing for GeekMoms comes in larger packages, say packages that are Nook Color-shaped, netbook-shaped, or the diamond of them all, the iPad 2-shaped.

I’m having a hard time concentrating this morning. I have a list of ideas to write about for geekmom, in addition to some waiting reviews and theme week plans. But I have pointy teeth and plaid romping through my head.

Last summer I attended ConnectiCon, and started playing a Hello Kitty board game with my daughter and our friend. At these conventions it is standard etiquette to invite strangers to play with you. So I called out to nearby people, and one jumped up to join us.

He was a guy (+10 points), cute (+10), had werewolf fangs (+10), wearing a kilt (+500) and wanted to play Hello Kitty (+50,000 or so.) Now, he may have wanted to join us because he genuinely adored that cartoon cat, but it was more likely because my daughter and friend were lovely girls his age in funky clothes (I’m not familiar with how men do points, but it’s a fair guess.)

The guy in fangs and tartan was named Stephen, and seemed (insert old lady voice here) like a nice young man. I think he won the game, the whole thing was amusing, and that was it. Then this week Facebook told me it was Stephen’s birthday. I was reminded of how I knew him, and that phrase “Kilted Werewolf Playing Hello Kitty” started its carousel in my imagination.

“Kilted Werewolf Playing Hello Kitty.” There has to be something with that: a song, story, comic…something! Real life comes up with weird stuff and it’s my job to mold it into art. But I’m not sure what form it should take. And that’s where I’m at today: ideas, images and that phrase bubbling around making it very hard to think of anything else. Let’s take a peek into that frothing mass for a moment, calling it Snapshot of an Obsessive Wordsmith as a Geekmom.

Hello Kitty: I collected Hello Kitty stickers in grade-school, and I love that she is still popular today. I even made one of my rpg characters carry around this umbrella.

Werewolf: I firmly plant myself on team ‘I Will Save Myself.’ But this skit is hilarious. My heart goes out to a man who can make me laugh. Taylor Lautner makes me love werewolves.

Kilted: Oh, gawd. Kilts, kilts, kilts. Is there any piece of men’s clothing past or present that is sexier than a kilt? I vote “no.”

Individually these words interest me, but put together is what really gets me going. Werewolves are all manly. Wrap a kilt on that bad-boy and we have a winner. Plunk him in a chair clapping because he got to pick the prettiest blue shoes in a pastel board game, and I want to write lyrics. Or at least get a post out of it :P

My daughter asked for and received her first alarm clock this Christmas. She is in first grade and we thought it would help her get up and get ready for school in the morning. She is notoriously slow in the mornings, which makes me dread those teen years, but we hoped that maybe if she had an alarm clock it would help light that proverbial fire under her so she would get ready quicker. Now that she has it there has been one thing we hadn’t counted on. She now has a radio in her room. Of course she wanted to listen to it, but the question was, what station could we put it on that was appropriate for a six-year-old?

In the car, we listen to several stations with various types of music, but when something inappropriate comes on, i.e. anything from Britney Spears, we change the station. Now that she has the radio in her room, we are no longer there all the time to change the station if a non-parent-approved song comes on. Our temporary solution has been to put it on the local Spanish station. She doesn’t understand a word but she likes having the music on. Who knows, maybe she will pick up a few words. I have also thought about Radio Disney, but I don’t like a lot of the starlets they push. So many of them have imploded and set bad examples, see Britney Spears again. Have any of my fellow GeekMoms run into this issue? What kinds of music and/or stations do your kids listen too?

I have a daughter turning five, and she has a problem. Two problems, really. The first is an inability to decide what she wants for a birthday theme. The second is a mommy who thoroughly enables this indecisiveness. Last year it resulted in a cake shaped like Gotham City with a bat signal on top of a Hello Kitty village with a Spider-Man web connecting them. This year the superheroes got replaced by pirates and Mario, but Hello Kitty stuck around.

Lucky for me, short of something they make a cookie cutter for, there is no easier fondant request than Hello Kitty cupcakes. The cat’s head is an oval with ears, two dots and some whiskers. You can do this in your sleep. And as tired as moms always are, you might have to.

There are some tips for making or buying the fondant in my Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy cake instructions. It’s hard to get a true black with dye, so I don’t make black fondant except in very small amounts. I definitely recommend buying some if you want to make Badtz-Maru. If you can’t find Satin Ice locally or if it’s too expensive, Wilton sells a package of Natural Colors fondant that includes black. Michaels stores also now carry the Duff (Ace of Cakes) line of supplies, including tubs of colored fondant.